Which brands are winning the World Cup?

Experian Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today reveals that South African Airways was the brand that benefited most from its sponsorship of the FIFA Football World Cup last week. UK Internet searches for the South African Airways brand (one of the South African team’s official sponsors) increased by 129.2 percent between the week ending June 5 and the week ending June 12. South African Airways’ Experian Hitwise World Cup Brands Index score increased from 109 for the week ending June 5 to 250 for the week ending June 12.

Aside from South African Airways, beer sellers have been the big winners in the sponsorship game, with Heineken, Carlsberg, Corona and Budweiser filling up slots two to four of Experian’s league table.

“The massive spike in searches for South African Airways illustrates the appetite for last minute travel to watch the World Cup. There has also been an 85 percent increase in searches for flights to South Africa over the last couple of weeks,” commented Robin Goad, Director of Research at Experian Hitwise. “The industry Index that saw the biggest increase in searches last week was Food and Drink (up by 8 percent), as illustrated by the strong performance of beer brands. It just beat Travel (up 7.4 percent), while Technology and Telecoms came in third with a 4.8 percent increase.

“What the Experian Hitwise Brand Index highlights is that a weekend of football has given the food and drinks brands a real boost – particularly with England playing their first match on a Saturday night. The timing of these opening matches has been reflected in their advertising and marketing campaigns with great offers and promotions that are relevant, humorous and authentic.

“It also highlights the rewards that integrated marketing campaigns can deliver. With the exception of the Dutch team, all the teams the top five brands sponsor had played at the time our Index was compiled.”

One in every 144 Internet searches in the UK was World Cup related last week. The Fifa website remains the biggest recipient of World Cup search traffic, and last week was the 109th most visited website in the UK, and the fourth most popular Sports website.

Edited by Ellie Duncan

Link: http://www.hitwise.com/